“Right. I was just thinking that,” Jerricho said. “Too bad we can’t pick up the Earth, give it a good scrub and shampoo to rid it of all that attitude against women and minorities,” he said quietly. “At least we know that we’ve done the right thing.”
“Absolutely. The funny thing is, nobody will even know.”
“And that’s fine,” Jerricho said. “That’s the way it should be. We don’t do things for the kudos. We do things because it needs to happen.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” Killian said.
As they headed back toward the hotel, Jerricho asked, “What do you want to do about food?”
“Either we pick up something or we go to the restaurant in the hotel, but I don’t know how late it’s open,” he said. “We’re actually a little later than we intended to be now.”
As they walked through the town, a small café was open. They popped in, grabbed what looked to be sandwiches but in flatbread, and took it back to the hotel. As they walked into the lobby, it was empty. “I presume everybody has crashed,” he said.
“They’re all exhausted. I need a few more hours of sleep myself,” Killian said.
“As soon as we eat,” he said, “we should get a good night’s rest.” And he walked up to their floor, unlocked the door, and stepped in, on the bed were several packages of clothing. Jerricho smiled and said, “Look at that delivery service.”
“I do love that about this system,” he said. “Because we do need some things delivered, and it’s nice to know that no questions are asked, just, What do you need? And, the same day, here it is.”
Jerricho put the food down on the table and turned at the voice from the hallway. And there was Brenna.
She smiled up at him. Obviously washed, showered, and looking a whole lot better, she stepped forward with a bright smile.
“You look like you’re fully recovered.”
“I wouldn’t say fully,” she said, with a light laugh. Then she looked at the food and said, “That answers that question.”
“What question?”
“I wanted to see if you wanted to go down to the restaurant,” she said.
He looked at her in surprise, then looked at Killian, who motioned at the bag and said, “We just picked up food, but there’s lots, if you want to join us.”
She looked at him. “I don’t want to take your food away. I just didn’t want to go to another strange place alone. And Jessie is staying in the room. She’s not feeling that well.”
“Right,” Jerricho said. “We just came back from the station, trying to help all the women. We pretty well got everybody straightened away, except for you two, and we’re taking you back to the US with us.”
“Right,” she said. She stepped back out of the room and said, “I’ll go pick up some food.”
“Almost everything is closed,” Jerricho said. “You might as well come in and have some of ours.” She hesitated; he shook his head. “Come on. It won’t be the first meal we’ve shared.”
“No, that’s true,” she said, taking a good look at him. “And thank you. I appreciate it.” As she sat down at the table, she looked at everything and asked, “How many people are you expecting to feed?”
“It’s funny,” Jerricho said, “because I hemmed and hawed about how much to get and then decided to get extra, thinking about tomorrow morning. But tomorrow morning we can always get more.”
“Good,” she said, as she reached for one of the big wrap sandwiches. “It looks really interesting.”
“And that’s always a good thing,” he said. The three of them sat here peaceably eating. “What about Jessie? Did she want something picked up?”
“She’s having trouble keeping food down,” she said, with a sideways grin, “Baby is making himself a little more known than she had expected at this point.”
“As long as she’s okay,” he said in concern.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been a pretty stressful time.”
“True. Hopefully it’ll be not so stressful going forward.”
“I just want to get her home, where she’s safe and sound,” she murmured.
“And what will you do when you get home?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said. “Go home, but not to my family. Yet I don’t want to go back to my apartment.” She shrugged. “It’ll feel very strange after all this.”
“Does it feel strange after all your traveling anyway?”
“Not really,” she said. “This one was just particularly bad.” She quickly finished her sandwich, and then she stood and said, “I’ll head downstairs to my room.”
“I’ll take you,” he said. He got up, snagged the garbage, tossed it, then looked at Killian and said, “You get some sleep. I’ll take her back down, make sure she’s okay.”
As they headed out to the hallway, Killian got up and left for the bathroom. She looked at him, as they closed and locked the door. “Any chance of going for a walk outside?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Why?”
“Five minutes of sightseeing,” she said in a gentle voice. “I know I saw lots when I was first here, but, at the same time, I probably won’t ever come back. I’d like to at least walk the town.”
He hesitated.
“Or is it not safe?”
“No way to know,” he admitted. “Going out for a few minutes won’t hurt,” he said, “if it will help you to sleep.”
“I’m still too keyed up for that,” she said quietly. “It feels like it’s over, but then it feels like it’s not over.”
“I would say it’s not over,” he said, “at least not yet.”
“Right.” She sighed. “I just want it all over with.”
“I get that,” he said, “and we’re heading home soon.”
She nodded.
“Are you going back to the same job?”
“Ever since the conversation with Jessie, I’ve been rethinking it.”
“That’s up to you,” he said. “You mentioned it before, so it has to be something that you’re comfortable with.”
She nodded. “And I don’t know what I’m comfortable with. It just feels like another major milestone in my life, like another major change coming up. Or a fork in the road.”
“Change isn’t necessarily bad,” he said.
As they stepped out the front door to the hotel, he held out his hand and said, “Stay close to me, please.”
She tucked her hand up against his elbow and said, “Absolutely. Being female and alone, I don’t think I’d do a whole lot of traveling like that again.”
“Not even with Jessie?”
“No,” she said. “Something like this changes you. I keep looking over my shoulder. I keep wondering where the next attack will come from. I know that it doesn’t make any sense and that just because it happened once doesn’t mean it’ll ever happen again, but it’s a hard thing to shake off.”